


Out of the Element

by Procrastination_Station_Lads



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Asexual Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Elemental Magic, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Procrastination_Station_Lads/pseuds/Procrastination_Station_Lads
Summary: “It’s best to learn with someone of the opposite element. Comparing and contrasting techniques is one of the fastest ways you’re going to get used to this,” Allura says.Lance whips around. “Excuse me?”“Well, fuck you too,” Keith mutters, rolling his eyes.Or: Allura accidentally disturbs an ancient family artifact, releasing the five spirits of Voltron — and now everyone has to figure out how to put them back where they belong before the strange elemental powers they give Lance, Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro attract the wrong kind of attention.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter One

When they all look back, it really did come out of nowhere. 

_________________

  
_“Allá en la Habana del Este_  
_Pasando el túnel de amor…”_

Lance swings his hips in tune with the music playing from the overhead speakers, gloved hands scrub-scrub-scrubbing at the 11th plate of the day. His face pulls into a grimace as a bit of dry, stubborn bean doesn’t quite pry off the china — and yeah, this is why doing the dishes is his favorite part of the job. Totally. 

“Lance!” 

He turns around to see his sister Veronica across the kitchen at the doorway, a clean apron pulled over her kakis and blue t-shirt. On the top left, “Fuentes” is stitched in loopy black cursive — his mother’s maiden name and the name of their parent’s restaurant, where each McClain child has to work at for at least a year. Lance is going on his third. He’ll tell you he hates it, but he’s lying. 

“Yeah?”

“Take those nasty gloves off, will you? We’re short some servers.”

“You’re the one who told me to put these nasty gloves on to do the dishes in the first place!”

“Plans change, dude. Get to it.” She waves an order between her fingers.

Groaning — but undoubtedly relieved — Lance stalks up and swipes the paper from her hand. 

He flies by each station, all within elbow-room of the others, and he has to squeeze past cooks and servers as he does it, walking on their toes and yelping out apologies. But it’s all by heart — where the charred meat grills are, where the messy sauce pans with huge ladles sit, the way he elbows his brother Marco playfully as Marco scruffs his hair and the way he ducks under someone opening the microwave. 

Arranging it all on the plate takes a second of forethought, and he thinks that he does okay, despite the fact that Hunk could probably make it look like Gordon Ramsey’s most intricate fever dreams. But Hunk got to quit when he scored that scholarship at Garrison Academy, the one that could probably pay for Lance’s car insurance — which isn’t a small amount. He’d scraped too many cars as a teenager for that.

The song playing above hits a swell, and Lance grins, closing his eyes. 

_“Tengo una casita linda,_  
_Que allá esta mi corazón!”_ he belts out, one hand pressed to his heart and the other reaching for the sky, fingers flared. 

“Shut up, Lance,” his brother Marco mutters as he brushes past him.

“Nah.” Lance scoops up the plate in one hand and a water cup in the other, heading for the door, and — 

And then it’s like everything stops moving. 

He can see the bright yellow walls of the restaurant outside, some portions of it painted like windows looking out on the Cuban countryside, but the color doesn’t hurt like it usually does. The White Mariposas on each table stare back from their vases. The warm, tan tile underneath his feet is still, no legs cutting across to interrupt it, no chairs being scooted back from their tables, and — 

And then it’s like everything is alive. 

Lance’s grip on the water falters, a bit of it sloshing over the lip of the cup. But the cup is outlined in a watery purple, and the water is practically sparkling, and he can feel the energy coming in and out, in and out, from each breath, from each touch. The cracks between the tiles are violet. When he looks back, everyone in the kitchen is outlined in the same sheen, too. 

Something wriggles over his heart, and then burrows in. Lance sees white. The cup slips from his hand. 

“Lance?” 

It all comes back. 

He looks down at the water as it splashes over, and wishes desperately that this wasn’t happening. What’s going on? Is he having a seizure? Oh shit, is he _dying?_ Is — 

He watches as his heart gives a sharp tug, and as the falling water slurps itself back into the cup. Once it’s done, the surface doesn’t even stir. 

“Lance!” 

“Ah!” He whips around, heart pounding against his chest, but Marco is just looking at him from across the room, eyes squinted. 

“What are you standing there for?”

“Oh. Uh. To...um.” Lance tries. Marco frowns. 

“You okay? Never seen you at a loss for words.”

“I can save them when I want,” Lance haughtily says, spinning back around on his heel and trying to ignore the fact that he’s hyperventilating. But everything’s fine. Totally fine. Marco didn’t see it. Nobody did. If that were the case, they would’ve called the wizard police or something by now. 

And then Lance doesn’t know what else to do, so he just steps forward, headed toward table five and trying not to sprint all the way back to his apartment to tell Hunk what the fuck just happened, because _nothing_ is fine. 

________________

“Shit.” 

Keith pulls his hand away from the two pipes his fingers had just gotten stuck between, hissing a breath between his teeth. He’s on his back under an old twisted-up car, dirty oil dripping in his eyes as he tries to see if anything is worth salvaging. So far, nothing looks promising. 

Keith sighs, gripping his wrench. Shiro is nice enough to let him use their garage to haul his projects in, but it’s only on the condition that he doesn’t set anything on fire, and he’s about ready to light a match and call it a day. Usually he can scavenge car guts without problem, even if it means welding some parts back together if they break in the process, but this car is not having it. 

And honestly, Keith knows he probably shouldn’t be in the garage right now, even though Shiro isn’t home. It’s not like Shiro would actually protest to him being in there, but he’d have that _look_ in his eye, the worried one. The one he’s been carrying around ever since finally Keith admitted he dropped out of college and wouldn’t say why. 

He needles him about it, but only in the most Shiro-like way. Side-glances during dinner. Questions about why his hands are always covered in grease, why he’s taking hunks of junk home from work, why he’s always in the garage. 

Shiro seems to think he isn’t ready to talk about it. As always, Shiro is infuriatingly right. 

It’s giving Keith a headache. He sets his wrench down and rubs at his eyes, sighing when the oil makes them sting. But then he blindly reaches for his wrench again, because he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get at least _one_ win today. 

He’s got a pipe halfway out when it hits. It’s like a snap, but it happens so fast that he barely notices it happening — the world in negative, sparking blues and heady purples, and he feels it shift his veins out of place, feels it jumpstart his heart like he’d do with any old car. Stick the plugs in and go _zap_ _._

His eyes fly open. His hands burn. Something white-hot drips down his arm, almost like molten honey, and he stares, finally seeing it for what it is. Melted metal. His wrench is melting in his hands. 

When he drops it, he sees indents where his fingers were — and he also sees his hands burning, flames licking off from the lines of his palms as if they were candle wicks. 

“Oh, god.”

________________

Shiro had no idea getting married would be so stressful. 

First you have to figure out who to invite — and that includes deciding whether to send a ‘save the date!’ card to the homophobic aunt for the sake of pissing her off, or a real invitation to the awkward but well-meaning coworker who gave him a bottle of dusty wine upon hearing of the engagement. Then there’s the flowers (roses or orchards?) and the menu (your average grill-out or something more out there?) and where it’s even going to be. 

But the cake. The cake is where Adam really wanted things to shine. As a certified sugarholic, he’d dragged both of them to cake shop after cake shop, eyeing the toppers and poking at the frosting. This is the third cake tasting they’ve been to this week, and it’s at a quaint little mom-and-pop shop whose owners _ooh_ and _ahh_ over their engagement rings and bring out pastry after pastry on pretty glass plates. 

“Mmm!” Adam’s eyes widen as he sticks his fork into his mouth, lips instantly widening as he looks at Shiro in delight. Shiro smiles, because it’s impossible not to. 

“Good?”

“Yeah, red velvet! C’mon, give it a try.” 

Shiro digs his fork into the other side of the cake, and it’s halfway to his mouth when a low, almost shuddering feeling blooms in his stomach. It’s not entirely uncomfortable, but it’s not normal, either, and it has him staring at the cake speared on his fork instead of eating it, wondering what’s happening. It doesn’t feel like the start of a panic attack, but…

“Shiro?” Adam’s hand lands on his shoulder, and he leans in, frowning. “You alright?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, giving Adam a smile. Because he’s fine — he is. 

Except it’s getting worse. It’s still there throughout the chocolate ganache, and the carrot cake, and even the mini strawberry crepes they know they’re not going to order for the wedding but taste anyway just because they look irresistible, and it’s not going away. It’s like a vacuum has been plugged into his stomach and lungs, stirring the air before sucking it out. 

Then one pull punches the breath out of him entirely, and the doors fly open with a wind gust that could’ve come from a hurricane, the entry bell jangling with a vengeance. Shiro’s cake goes flying over the table, and the white napkins take off like birds, circling around the table. 

“Goodness!” one of the shopkeepers says, ruffling her hair and straightening out her crooked apron. “It’s not supposed to storm, is it?” 

Shiro just blinks, staring at his empty fork. 

________________

Hunk loves astrophysics. He does. It’s really the light of his life, the cherry on top, the answer to all his questions, the…

 _Fuck,_ Hunk hates astrophysics. 

It isn’t like the course is actually hard. Numbers aren’t difficult for Hunk, and they never have been. It’s just the sheer amount of _work_ that’s been pushed on his class, from piles of papers to worksheets to full-blown group projects. Hunk just wants to watch a little bit of trashy reality TV every once in a while, but he can’t even have the small comfort of the Kardashians. 

Hunk groans, dropping his head onto the warm wood of the picnic table. It’s one of his favorite study spots, tucked in a shady nook of trees by Garrison Academy’s computer science building, but not even the familiar doodles on the bench or the smell of freshly cut grass can comfort him. He’s done for. 

He would call Lance, but Lance is still on his shift, and he tries not to be _too_ negative around his friends, thank you very much. Even if he fails miserably at that every so often. 

Hunk raises his forehead an inch and thunks it back down on the table. He’ll live here and die here, in a pile of bitten pencils and looseleaf paper, with a laptop and a thick textbook on the side. They’ll find him and understand. It’ll be on his tombstone: _here lies Hunk, who didn’t know when to take a damn break._

And then the grounds shifts below him, like someone grabbed the feet of his table and tried to make it do a flip. 

“Shit!” Hunk scrambles to his feet, looking around wildly. Is it an earthquake? No, that can’t be right. They don’t have earthquakes here. A sinkhole?

He’s still trying to figure it out when his blood surges and the ground rises beneath him, hefting up the picnic table a few feet up with it. 

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” If Hunk’s ever known another word, he can’t think of it now. All he can do is grip the sides of the table and try not to notice how every shift of the ground is matched with a roiling in his gut, tilting back and forth as if trying to get its footing. 

Just as fast, something seems to click into place. The ground drops back down, and Hunk falls with it, landing on the bench with a _t_ _hunk._

“Owwmygod!” he yells, the two thoughts mushing together. He goes still, watching the dirt for any sign of a rumble, but it seems to be satisfied with its silence right now. 

“That didn’t just happen,” Hunk mutters, cradling his head in his hands. “That did _not_ just happen!”

Except it did. 

________________

“Pidge.”

“Yes, brother dearest?

“Shut up. Just tell me one thing.”

The two are outside the Holt household, sweating in the direct sunlight of the front yard as they pull weeds from around thorny white rose bushes and pink petunias. Pidge is going at three with her elbow, trying to oust their roots all at once. 

“Jesus Christ, you could just ask to borrow the trowel,” Matt mutters, wiping at his forehead with the front of his shirt. Pidge gives him a feral grin, taking the trowel and going at the dirt with a passion. 

“You were asking?”

“Ah, yes. Remind me why the fuck you thought hot-wiring our neighbor’s car was a good idea?” 

Pidge rolls her eyes, dusting dirt off her arms. “I wanted to see if I could do it.”

“Why didn’t you just, like, practice on mom’s car?”

“Because I didn’t want to accidentally break it if I got it wrong.” 

Matt slaps his hand on his face, smudging it with dirt, and heaves out a sigh. “So breaking the neighbor’s car was a better option?”

“Matt, c’mon. You know they’re Republicans. I don’t feel too bad about it.” She pulls a long weed out from the earth, marveling at its extensive root structure. “Also, I _didn’t_ break it. Important detail.”

“Thank God mom caught you before they did,” Matt mutters. “Or maybe not, since we’re stuck out here doing this.” 

Pidge sighs, handing Matt back the trowel. “You know you don’t have to do this with me, right? It’s my punishment, not yours.”

Matt snorts. “Well, sure, but who am I to leave my baby sister out here all alone?”

Pidge grins, but pretends that she doesn’t.

They spend the next ten minutes finishing up the area around the roses just to get the thorny plants out of the way, and they’re halfway through the enormous, overgrown rosemary bush when Pidge feels something brush across her wrist. She swears, scrambling back in the dirt, and Matt frowns.

“Pidge? What’s wrong?”

“Could’ve sworn there was a snake,” she says, staring down the dirt, but she only sees spindly weeds and the short, stubby ends of rosemary. Then it happens again — a feeling like something’s wrapping over her wrist, up her arm, right to her temple. 

She reaches up, confused. There’s nothing there. But she can feel it as it traces around her hairline, contemplating, before striking straight into her skull. 

“Ow!” Pidge yells, flinching so hard her hands fly away. And right as she touches a single rosemary branch, the plant shoots up, bristling as if offended. 

She and Matt watch as it grows at least a foot before their very eyes. They don’t say anything for a very, very long time. 

And then Pidge groans, pointing at the base of the plant. “Shit, man, the weeds grew back!” 

Matt just shakes his head in disbelief. 

________________

All it took was an elbow. The slightest nudge while reaching for something else. 

Allura can barely bring herself to look down. She heard the crash. She knows what’s there. But she eventually pries her eyes to the ancient wood floor of her father’s study, which is covered in glass shards — blue, red, black, yellow and green. Some are stuck in cracks between the floorboards. Others are piled on top of other colors, to the point where it looks like a kaleidoscope instead of just a mess. 

“Allura!” Coran almost breaks the door off its hinges as he bursts in, but he shrinks back as soon as the room shudders indignantly, the hung-up photos drumming against the walls. 

“Sorry, sorry!” he whispers, hands up, before darting straight to Allura. “I felt some spirits just race by, Allura. Are you okay? Did they—?”

Then he sees the floor. 

“Oh,” he says. “Oh no.”

“Oh no,” Allura repeats weakly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, coming back from the dead three years later? It’s more likely than you’d think. 
> 
> I’ll be honest — I just needed to write something fun (and I just needed to write anything at all cause my writer’s block with original content was getting really bad). The world is kinda shit right now, obviously. I hope reading this can give you a little bit of reprieve. 
> 
> Also, black lives fucking matter. Here’s a list of places to donate to and petitions to sign: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0KC83vYfVQ-2freQveH43PWxuab2uWDEGolzrNoIks/edit
> 
> P.S. - The song Lance is singing is Habana del Este by the Afro-Cuban All Stars and it’s a fuckin bop, go listen to it.


	2. Chapter Two

When Lance walks into his apartment after his shift, bags under his eyes and a satchel full of leftovers slung over his shoulder, Hunk is already sitting rigidly on the couch — bug-eyed, stiff-limbed. 

“Lance!” he howls before Lance can take another step, shooting up from the couch. “Lance, you’re not going to _believe_ —”

Lance tosses his satchel onto the kitchen table, rubbing at his temples. “No, dude, I don’t think _you’re_ going to believe —”

“I was studying and then —”

“— was trying to serve up this order and —”

“The ground shifted! Like an earthquake, except —”

“And then the water _moved,_ like by itself, but —”

“— thought it was just nature, but I had this weird feeling that —”

“And it was almost like I was _controlling_ it!” 

Hunk falls silent. The two stare at each other from across the room. 

Then Hunk bounds forward, grabbing Lance’s shoulders with a rabid kind of urgency. “You too?”

“Yes!” Lance shrieks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “It was like something wormed inside me, and the next thing I know I was saving water glasses from falling and turning sinks on without even touching the faucet! It won’t stop!” 

“I know!” Hunk chews on his bottom lip, which looks like it’s been bitten to the quick already. “I got so nervous about it that the ground tilted and it almost flipped my car!” 

“Dude!”

_“Dude!”_

“Is this, like, universal?” Lance asks, whipping his phone out of his pocket. “Is this trending on Twitter?”

“I don’t think so, man,” Hunk says, and he shifts from foot to foot, eyes darting all around the room. “I was watching the news just now, and I didn’t see anything. I think it’s just us.”

“Yeah, no Twitter tag,” Lance mutters, swaying from side to side as he taps onto Instagram, just in case. “Seems like it’s — wait.”

Lance stands still. And that’s how he figures out that he isn’t moving — the floor is. Right in tune with Hunk’s foot-dance. The dishes are clattering in the cabinets, and the small scuffed TV they’ve hung up by the couch bangs against the wall in complaint. 

“Hunk.”

“I don’t like this, Lance. Not at all. What if they come for us? Like, the government? What if they’ve already planted little cameras in our apartment? What if they’re watching us _right now_ —”

“Hunk!” 

Hunk stops moving. The floor slowly but surely returns to normal, leaving nothing but silence and Hunk’s terrified, twisted grimace. Lance rubs at his heart, which has slowly but surely begun to burn. 

“Please tell me that wasn’t me.”

“Hunk. Did you just move this entire building?”

“Oh, this is _bad_ ,” Hunk moans, clasping his face in his hands. “I’m nervous all the time, dude! I’m gonna take this building down in my sleep!” 

“Hunk, breathe,” Lance says, trying to breathe himself. He gently guides Hunk to the couch by the elbow, and they both collapse into cushions that sink so low they’re practically swallowed up, numb-limbed and nothing short of exhausted. 

Hunk’s staring at the ceiling when Lance looks over, eyes tracing over the grooves. Lance has known him long enough to figure out that studying patterns is what forces Hunk’s brain to slow down from its almost constant dead sprint.

“We can deal with this,” Lance continues, not at all sure if they can deal with it. His heartburn flares in his chest as he scoots closer to Hunk, trying to flop out of the dent his body has created on the couch. “We’ll just figure out how to control it. Right?”

“Lance, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life worrying about whether or not I’m going to turn this town into the next Grand Canyon.” 

“And I don’t wanna worry that I’ll drown us all, so we’ll just… I dunno. Find someplace secluded. Try things out.” 

“Lance, I don’t know if ‘trying things out’ is going to work for this.”

“Well, what do you think we should do?” 

Hunk stretches, closing his eyes. “Dunno. Think I’ll take a stress nap.”

Lance sighs. 

________________

“Hello! Sorry to bother, but have you developed any strange and unexplainable elemental powers recently?”

Allura gets her 24th weird look of the day, and her 8th door slam — right in the face, inches away from her nose. 

She sighs, tucking a piece of milk-white hair behind her ear. She doesn’t blame them, honestly. It’s barely 9 in the morning, but Coran woke her up at 8, yelling something about the search being afoot. 

“First day, Allura! You better find them before they get themselves into trouble!” he’d said, somehow smiling even though the situation called for anything but. 

So here Allura is, pacing through a quaint neighborhood of townhouses shaded by great, sprawling oaks and dotted with curbside cars baking in the heat. 

Here’s the thing about quintessence — Allura is the only one she knows anymore who can feel it. Her father used to, but…

She swallows, turning away from the doorway and heading for the sidewalk to the next house. 

Allura knows the basics of quintessence, sure. She can feel it like a hitch in her chest and can even see its fuzzy purple rings if she squints hard enough. But it slips through her fingers whenever she tries to grab and pull. Her father could lasso it without a problem, threading the energy over his arms until it fed into his veins, but Allura was never so inclined. 

So to Allura, the quintessence of each Voltron spirit is hazy at best. But she does know that there’s a high energy signature in this particular area and that the spirits traditionally latch onto people. All she has to do is find them. 

She approaches the next door, which is plain and unadorned with any wreath or welcome mat. Allura steels herself before knocking, because if this person matches the personality of their porch, nothing about this is going to go well. 

For a second, there’s no response. But then the door opens to reveal an exhausted-looking boy with sooty fingers and a wrench in his hand, his black hair falling down to just above his shoulders. 

“Yeah?” he mutters, not quite making eye contact. Allura swallows, rattling out the line without thinking about it too hard. 

“Hello! Um, sorry to bother, but have you developed any strange and unexplainable elemental powers recently?”

The boy pales. He shifts his wrench in his hand, and she sees that its handle is distorted, like he’d held it over a bonfire and let it melt down. 

“No,” he says, and then he quietly shuts the door. Allura blinks. It wasn’t a slam, but it wasn’t what she had expected, either. 

And maybe she would’ve stayed if a car wasn’t pulling into the driveway, its 90s model painted a chipped white and one of its headlights taped into place. So instead she heaves out a sigh, making for the next door. 

________________

Pidge pulls the car into park, squinting at the lady who’s walking down from Keith and Shiro’s front porch. She’s got the best dye job Pidge has ever seen — there’s not even a hint of darker roots near the part line. Impressive. 

But Pidge isn’t here to stare at strangers. She’s here because _someone_ hasn’t been answering her texts for days on end. 

She yanks the keys out of the ignition and kicks the door shut, not bothering to lock the car. Let someone take it. The car would probably thank them for whisking it away from Pidge, who’s run into too many garages and side-swiped too many cars in parking lots to count. 

“Keith!” she yells, banging on the door with her fist. “I know you’re in there! Open up!” 

The door cracks open a few inches, and an exhausted-looking Keith peeks out, swimming in a giant red-wine sweatshirt.

“What do you want?” he mumbles, and Pidge wedges her foot into the doorway so he can’t close it. 

“What do I want? For you to talk to me, dumbass!” she says, grabbing the doorframe and wrenching it open even wider. Keith winces at the sun, cowering back like he's trying to disappear into his sweatshirt, but Pidge rolls her eyes. “You haven’t answered my calls or texts in days, dude. I wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

“I’m fine,” he says, clearly not fine. Pidge huffs. 

“Yeah. Bullshit. What’s been going on with you? You haven’t disappeared like this in years.” 

“Well, maybe there’s good reason. You ever thought about that?”

“Yeah, I did. And then I decided to come anyway, because if there’s good reason, you shouldn’t be alone.”

Keith’s eyes soften, and he stands up a little straighter, looking down at the floor. “Yeah, well. I mean.”

“You always had a way with words, Keith. How long has it been since you’ve gotten out?”

“Uh.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” She nods toward her car. “You know what you need? Some good food. That’s what Hunk taught me, at least. He used to work at this really good Cuban restaurant. Let’s go there.” 

Keith groans and stretches, the movement creating ripples and ruffles in his sweatshirt. He stares at her car with a wary eye. “Do we have to take Little Shitty?”

“Unless you have a better option. And no, I’m not riding on that half-built motorcycle you’ve cooked up.” 

“Fine.” 

________________

Pidge smiles as they cross the threshold of Fuentes, the entry bell jangling behind them. Keith looks sorely out of place among the bright yellow walls and the cheery burbling fountain that rests in the middle of the dining area, but judging by how enraptured everyone looks with their plates, nobody really cares. 

A waiter with warm tan skin and freckles saunters up to the front desk, eyes lighting in recognition. “Oh, hey Pidge! Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“Hey, Lance. Been studying.”

“You and Hunk both. What kinda table do you want?”

“Window seat.”

“You bet. Follow me.” 

The two trail Lance through the restaurant, looping around the fountain to a small wooden table for two. Normally Pidge would be checking out the other patrons — every time is always a good time to people-watch — but she finds herself massaging at her temples, scratching at the skin with blunt nails and a grimace. There’s a strange kind of tickling there, like she’s seconds away from a headache that won’t quite grow up. It had started on Keith’s doorstep but was easy to ignore until now. 

Lance sets the menus down with a wink when they sit, and Pidge snorts. 

“Watcha want to drink?”

“The usual.”

Now it’s Lance’s turn to roll his eyes. “Okay, boring. I’ll get you some water. What does your friend want?”

Keith snaps out of his reverie, his hands pausing where he was rubbing the creases with a frown. 

“Oh, um. Water?”

“What a charmer,” Lance says with a wry smile, and Keith flushes, sliding further down in his seat. 

“You know that guy?” he asks Pidge as Lance skips away, shooting finger guns at another table. As he leaves, Pidge’s temples start to flare down, going from a roar to low TV static. 

“Sorta. He’s Hunk’s roommate. I’ve met him a few times.” She looks down at Keith’s hands, which are scratching at each other again. “You good?”

“Yeah, my hands just feel weird for some reason,” he says, eyebrows knitting together. “Almost like they’ve fallen asleep or something.”

Pidge stares at him, and then looks back to Lance. He’s leading someone else to their seats, still donning a cheeky smile — if painted — as he rubs over his heart. 

“Weird,” she mutters. 

“What’s weird?” 

“Nothing.” Pidge folds her hands on the table, looking Keith in the eyes. “So, tell me. What’s been going on?”

Keith purses his lips. “Well, I’ve been helping Shiro pick out the wedding location.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Pidge—"

“C’mon, Keith. Be honest with me. I brought you to get food and everything.”

“Well, that’s just blackmail.”

“Of course it is. Spill.” 

Keith sighs, sitting up in his chair again. “So I quit college.”

“You _what?”_ Pidge whisper-yells, her voice cracking at the edges.

“Yeah. I dropped out.”

“Why?”

Keith shrugs. “I dunno. College isn’t for everyone.”

“Keith, that’s a lie. You were so excited to learn more about flying and mechanics. How can you do that without ROTC? Without the Air Force?”

“There’s other ways to get into the Air Force.” 

“Sure, but they all involve you being in some kind of program if you want to be a pilot — and we both know that Garrison Academy has the best one around. What are you going to do now?” 

Lance swings by with their water and a promise to return in just a moment. Keith grips his glass, watching the condensation drip down like sweat. 

“I don’t know, Pidge.” 

“Well, when are you going to find out?”

“I don’t _know_ , Pidge.” His fingers tighten, and a sharp smell slices at Pidge’s nose. 

“Well —"

“Pidge!” Smoke is rising from Keith’s glass, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. Pidge bites the inside of her cheek. She went too far and she knows it, but any apology is knocked out of her head at the sight of Keith removing his hand from the glass — at the sight of its concave, melted-in sides, the fingerprint dents colored with milky grey soot.

“Keith.”

_“What?”_

“Your glass.” 

Keith looks down and instantly pales. He snatches his hand away like it’s on —

Oh. 

“Keith. When did this start?”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a long while, but then looks up, eyes hardened. “Yesterday.”

“Me too.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“It was yesterday around noon, right? And then you could… I dunno, burn stuff?”

Keith shifts in his seat, crossing his arms. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s when I started to control plants.” 

Keith’s mouth falls open. Pidge just looks over at the kitchen, where Lance disappeared into moments before, and rubs at her temple again. “And I don’t think it’s just us.” 

________________

Lance isn’t crazy. He isn’t. 

At least, he doesn’t think so. 

He sighs, squinting in the burnished afternoon sun outside Fuentes. He’s leaned up against the stucco wall around the restaurant’s corner minutes after his shift ended, his apron still tied on too tight around his waist and his phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. 

Lance thought the weird, buzzing heartburn was just stress at first. But it went away when he left for his shift — and then came back twofold when Pidge and her friend with the weird hair waltzed through the door, and every time he so much as looked at their table.

And if he felt it around Hunk, who’d recently developed weird abilities too, then…

“I don’t know, Lance,” Hunk says from the other end. He has a way of reluctance that could carry through any medium, whether it be smoke signals or a choppy cell connection. 

“You have to try to ask Pidge, Hunk. I feel right about this one.” 

“I get heartburn all the time, dude. It’s probably just a coincidence.”

“You may, but I don’t. And when I did before, it never felt like this.”

Hunk sighs, and it comes through the receiver as a broken, static crunch. “Lance, I don’t really want to out myself as a ground wizard to one of my friends without good reason. Pidge is bros with science. She’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Not if she’s like us.” 

Hunk mutters a string of indecipherable words before finally sighing again, this one longer and heavier. “Fine. I’ll text her. But if she never talks to me again, you owe me homemade nachos for a month.” 

“Deal.” 

________________

It’s around noon by the time Pidge drops Keith back at his house, and he’s started to pull at the threads of his sweater, shrugging uncomfortably. 

“Why do you always dress like it’s in the middle of winter? It’s 90 degrees outside,” Pidge mutters, gearing the car into park. It lets out a guttural grinding noise that sounds like everything dearly wrong in the world, but she only pats the dashboard, whispering “suck it up.” 

“Well, it’s not like I planned on going out today.” 

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Her phone dings, and she snatches it out of the cup holder, squinting through her glasses. “Huh. It’s Hunk.”

“Oh. Cool.” Keith moves to open the car door, but Pidge whips her hand out, stopping him cold. 

“What?”

“Hold on.” Her fingers dart over the keyboard so fast that Keith thinks she should submit it for a world record. “I have a feeling.”

“What do you mean, a feeling?” It’s unlike Pidge to hang onto a whim. 

“I know it’s weird. But just hold on.” She types a little more, tongue trapped between her teeth. “He’s being dodgy.” 

“You told me he’s always like that.”

“No, not like…” She stops, and then smiles — a slow, calculated thing that could probably start a cult. Then she looks at Keith, a _knowing_ look in her eye that makes him shiver. 

“I fucking knew it.” 

“Knew what?”

“It’s not just us, Keith. Hunk has an ability too. So does Lance.” 

Keith doesn’t even act surprised. He just rubs at his eyes for the fifteenth time that day — because why wouldn’t this all be happening? All this chaos, all at once? 

Pidge unbuckles her seatbelt with a sharp _click_. “C’mon. We’re telling Shiro.” 

“We’re _what_?” Keith practically throws himself out of the car, pops of panic erupting in his chest as he sprints up the driveway to catch up with Pidge’s quick steps. “Pidge, what the fuck? Can’t I get two seconds to process this?”

Pidge wheels around, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. “What, so you plan to just never tell your brother what’s going on? You’re going to need his support with this, Keith.”

“I’ll tell him when I’m ready!”

“You’ll never be ready.” 

Keith winces, and his mouth opens to bite back when he forces it closed, closing his eyes. He can’t snap — both because he doesn’t want to ruin his record, and because he knows she’s right. So he tries another tactic. 

“Does Matt know?”

“Duh.”

_Well, shit._

Pidge strides forward, and Keith walks back until his heels are almost touching the front door. 

“Pidge, I really don’t want to tell him.” His hands are pulsing with his heartbeat, and he angrily pushes up a sleeve to scratch at them, trying to counteract the burn. 

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Keith, he’s your brother. You know he’ll help you through this.” 

“I can’t!”

Pidge sighs and grits her teeth, backing down. Her hand ghosts up to her temple, rubbing circles around the hairline. “Listen. I know I pushed you too hard earlier, and I’m sorry. But I really think —"

“Pidge, I can’t be more of a burden than I already am!” 

Pidge stops, and it looks like she almost flinches — eyelashes fluttering, shoulders jumping. Her scraggly eyebrows knit together, like she’s genuinely confused. Keith doesn’t get it. 

“What do you mean?”

Keith snorts, and he follows the lines of his hands with a finger, as if fortune-telling how to make the burning stop. “I already dropped out of college. And now this? Shiro shouldn’t have to deal with this. He’s got so much going on already!”

Pidge winces, and now she’s rubbing at her entire forehead. “God, you’re giving me a whole ass headache.”

And then Keith’s chest goes cold. He pauses his tracing, and takes the tiniest step backward. The burning gets worse. 

“Pidge.”

“What?”

“Your headache.”

“Yeah, what ab— Oh!”

The two stare at each other. And then they scramble over each other to get to the door, elbows jamming into sides and shoes tapping shins. 

“Shiro!” Pidge yells as soon as they spill past the threshold, eyes wildly tracing the entry room lined with comfortable grey couches and landing on the kitchen. Shiro sits at the high bar-like table with a thick book, his back turned to them and earbuds in his ears. The earthy candles he hates but Adam loves are flickering valiantly in the corner by the microwave — Adam must have recently left. 

“Shiro!“ Keith tries, doubt suddenly panging in his heart. What if they’re just being nuts? 

Then Shiro absently holds his hand out to the right, and the candles sputter out. The cold wind hits Keith last, ruffling his hair. 

“Christ,” Pidge whispers, and she looks at Keith, suddenly seeming worried. 

But Keith is already walking toward Shiro, quickly tapping him on the shoulder. Shiro pops out an earbud.

“Hey Keith. What’s up?”

Keith takes a deep breath, holds his hand up, and lets go. The flames bounce off the whites of Shiro’s eyes, which get wider as he stares. And stares. 

Then he lets out a sigh for the ages. “God. I was supposed to pick out _flowers_ today.” 

________________

_hey Pidgeon :]_

**Hey Hunko**

_what’s up?_

**The sky.**

_aah. no, but really._

**Idk man, just been studying. What are you asking?**

_can’t i just ask how you are??_

**Nah. You only ask general questions when you’re nervous.**

_dammit_

**Yeah. So what is it?**

_well um has anything like…_

_weird happened to you lately?_

**Define weird.**

_like uhhhhh_

_yanno_

_idk just anything weird_

**My professor went on a rant about his walking stick collection. That was pretty weird.**

_that’s. not what i mean._

_i mean like… mystical stuff_

**Hunk I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not interested in my horoscope.**

_again, not what i mean_

_i mean like something…_

**Spit it out Hunk**

_dammit fine_

_can you randomly control an element or something rn???_

**Oh shit, yeah. Why didn’t you just ask?**

_o my god rly?_

**Yeah. Plants. I know someone else who can control fire.**

**Oh also, has Lance developed anything like this recently? I saw him today and was feeling some vibes.**

_well… probably not my place to tell you but i mean yeah. he has._

**Shit dude. I guess we should all meet or something. Figure this out.**

_yeah maybe_

**What are their numbers? I’ll make a group chat.**

_o boy_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah Hunk uses :] instead of :) what about it 
> 
> I keep getting blocked with this story too but it’s better than the block with my original content, which is encouraging. At least I’m writing regularly again. 
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! Comments/constructive criticism are welcomed. The next chapter will clear up a lot of what’s going on, and I’m excited, cause it’s where the story picks up.


End file.
